Respite & Resolve

[Natalie Grey]

Talin Sedai, Yellow Ajah

“The True Source is the driving force of creation,” she said sharply. “Anything else is incomparable.” That seemed an easy enough distinction to her, particularly as a healer. If the world must be dismantled before it could be rebuilt, so be it, but there was little question in her mind as to the superiority one function had over the other. She was not interested in philosophising with him, however -- or in hearing his self-aggrandising claims -- and her lips sealed tight after. He could lecture if he wished, but it seemed an utterly wasteful use of both time and breath.

The question tripped like a ward in her mind, though. She was not convinced that he truly understood the magnitude of his diagnosis and its ramifications yet, but she perceived that he did probably realise that there were choices to be made. Presumably regular darkfriends were plagued by consciences of their own, but either they decided not to listen to them, else placed other priorities in higher esteem. Nothing about Arikan suggested he would forgive so easily what had been done to him by choosing the same paths that robbed him of so much. But power lured in dangerous ways. It could not entirely be ruled out that his thirst for revenge might become too tightly braided with ambition.

He had spent a lifetime in thrall. Eventually he would realise he could ignore that whisper.

Then they would see what he became.

She watched him quietly for a moment, still and wary. She knew better than most how habit and convenience informed the soul, and Arikan had already sermonised quite endlessly on his dark knowledge and preferences. Whatever he chose for himself Talin did not ultimately care, so long as he upheld his end of the bargain first, but she was not ignorant of the risk; that this deal might only trade one danger for another. But one was better odds than thirteen. And once the Dragon's Peace shattered into pieces, as she suspected it very soon would, there would be little other choice. Talin laid careful contingencies, but she could not account for every variable. She did not find the fallibility comfortable.

The swift promise of violence made her shudder, perhaps in extension of her sobre thoughts. She did not consider herself squeamish, but the idea of her own dismemberment was not particularly pleasant. Kaori made a small note of irritation in his throat for her reaction. She did not hide the disgusted purse of her lips, mostly because she had learned Arikan enjoyed invoking fear. Such was the dance between them that made him sometimes pliable, and her still alive.

She was a little disappointed when he sat, though. His was certainly the kind of company best left to small doses.

Her hands rested primly in her lap. She perched like a bird on the edge of flight. Clearly he still felt her provision of another sister into their arrangement was a dereliction on her part. She was content to allow him to believe it, though. Everything she had said about her failure to produce Elsae was true, but not because she was incapable or even unwilling. It was because in so doing she would have marked the termination for her own use, and Talin was simply not done with him. Reward versus risk, it was a pointless endeavour for her to perform the deed herself. Nythadri was a very specific choice though, and for more reasons than one. But the manipulations laid here must be subtle.

Despite her awareness of his patience, she did not answer right away. Her sister wouldn't be thankful for anything she chose to share, no matter how insignificant, and while the chains of Nythadri’s loyalty were strong they were not infallible – and they had already been greatly strained the last few days. Talin tried to decide whether it counted as betrayal, but came to no obvious conclusions, in part because she saw these people as two sides to the same coin. One loyalty did not outstrip the other, for the moment at least. And debts could be repaid.

“Very well,” she said eventually. The vagaries of everything would have gone better with tea to soothe the throat, but she thought better of sharing the observation. “We are not friends, precisely. But Nythadri has few of those. The bonds she makes are rarely shallow. It is the most reliable thing about her.

“She’s from minor nobility, a House in Andor I believe. Some kind of scandal nipped her heels when she first came to the Tower; not that you’d ever hear a word of it from her own lips, but there were rumours at the time.” Talin shrugged; whispers amongst novices had never been of much interest to her. “She never seemed to care what people thought of her, even when the gossip was damning. She did cut her family out like a canker though. That's more or less an expectation of donning the white, but most girls are at least a little sentimental about it, else they still think their highborn birth places them at a lofty height to the rest of us. But I’ve never heard her talk about her family or her past.

“She’s perhaps the most politically astute person I know, though she’ll tell you she has no interest in the game. The Blues courted her from the very beginning, as was their right of course, given they brought her in. They nudged her every step along the way, but they may as well have tied rocks about her ankles. If she took a long time to earn the Ring, and she did, it was because she didn’t care to impress the people she ought to have cared to impress. I would say she did not care for the ways the Tower tried to shape her at all. Such a gift to squander.”

They had barely known each other then, but Talin had always watched those around her. The haughty disapproval in her voice was genuine. She would not have wasted such opportunities as Nythadri had been afforded.

“I don’t know precisely what changed. Hard labour on the farm perhaps. The Mistress of Novices’ own bondmate apparently escorted her back to the Tower in disgrace, though I don’t know what it was she did in the city to earn such a punishment. The farm is about as hard as a girl may push before she’s cast out a failure, and tenure as an Accepted is not at all common. Nythadri learns her lessons the hard way often as not, but I cannot imagine fear was the thing to break and bind her. Had the Tower cut her loose, I do not believe she would have looked back.

“My understanding is that it was what happened in Arad Doman which changed her mind. Some unusual lesson facilitated by the Brown Sitter, Fate Sedai. That is all she has ever said to me. You must know who the woman’s brother is.” She was curious to know what, if anything, Arikan knew of the politics abroad, but did not pause longer than to observe a cursory reaction to the connection. If he did not know now he would know soon enough. Everyone would. The long months King Daimon had quietly spent brokering peace with the Seanchan was contentious at best, but war would utterly ruin the Tower's chances of being ready for the Last Battle. Even so, it shifted discreetly in favour of that ruin. “After all that tiresome obstination, Nythadri had the shawl within a year – her stint on the farm included. Sufficiently motivated, she is quite relentless in her focus. She really would have made a formidable Blue. Certainly it would have been the smart decision, given her skillset. But it wasn’t what she chose.” On what Ajah she did choose, Talin purposefully did not say. She did not think it was a difficult summation, given the way Nythadri had reacted to the situation, but mostly she wanted to witness what questions Arikan did or did not choose to ask of the holes in her account. Talin offered a wide breadth of knowledge, but if he wanted more specifics he would have to give her more indication of what it was he wished to glean.

Her head tilted. Red hair arrowed neatly against her cheek. “You realise, of course, that she never said she would bring Elsae to you. Not explicitly. And you allowed her the loophole.

“If she asked for more time, it’s because she’s already three steps ahead of where she needs to be. I very much doubt she will have believed much of anything you said, and I could not tell you the conclusions she drew, but I am certain she will find sufficient justification to help you given what she did say. She will not betray the chance you might be genuine, not unless you give her a compelling reason. Better to give her the reign anyway, in my experience. Let her feel she forms her own opinions and choices. I do not think you will be disappointed. Frustrated, perhaps. She is certainly that. But I would not have brought her to you if I did not trust her capability. Clearly my own life depends upon it.”

Talin paused for a moment then. The soft hint of a frown tightened her brow, and her gaze flickered away. She tried not to flinch. She did not know how he would take that last bit. Poorly, probably, but she wanted him to understand her summary of Nythadri was not merely made of airy and meaningless words. More threats would be predictable, and she would weather them as she normally did, but she was still very aware of her arm and the unexpected volatility of his earlier reaction. Koari shifted with her unease. Whatever Nythadri believed of Talin’s motivations, Talin had understood that the Green would not be able to walk away from this – especially if she felt Talin intended to. Arikan could not hope for a more ironclad alliance, if he could help himself from ruining it all by being so stubbornly… himself. And if Nythadri exerted some influence in turn.

Well, a conscience was rather the point.

“There is something else you should know," she added after quiet consideration. "I cannot account for the Warder. She was an unexpected complication, and one I dealt with as efficiently as I could at the time, though it burned some of Nythadri’s trust to do it. But, Nythadri will take hard decisions when she must, and they seem to have met some accord between them.

“Kaori says she is from Kandor, but she has vocal claims to Malkieri blood that might make her quite insufferable on the point of your past. Eleanore Candevin Aramorgran is her name. I cannot see that she will approve of what Nythadri is doing, and frankly you have done precious little to smooth that path today. I did see her kneel and make the oaths though. I believe she will be loyal to her Aes Sedai upon her honour alone. But I do not know her, and neither does Nythadri. That is more risk than I would like.”

A risk that must be considered carefully, not rashly acted upon, of course. Her gaze slid back, brow raised as though she could hear the loud mechanism of his thoughts. “Walking too firmly in the Light is not justification for murder, in case you were wondering.” That she had almost sliced the woman clean in two with her Gate she did not of course mention. That had been pure survival, and would have been a simpler resolution to the sticky issue in all honesty, but it was done with now. In any case, offing what was now a sister’s warder seemed in a higher class of sin. And she needed Nythadri sharp, not reeling from the loss.